


Lisa Ramsay

by EtchJetty



Series: Etch's Sketches - A One-Shot Collection [15]
Category: Kitchen Nightmares RPF, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-11-23 02:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20884976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtchJetty/pseuds/EtchJetty
Summary: Lisa, the food critic of Brockton Bay, is "enticed" to work for Coil.





	Lisa Ramsay

Lisa took a single sip and spit it back out. “IT’S FUCKING RAW,” she screamed into the face of the chef who’s stew she tasted. “THROW IT OUT. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.”  
  
The chef, sniffling, took his stew away. “Right, who’s next?” Lisa asked, looking around. Several of the chefs who were supposed to be cooking their own meals quickly turned away. One brave soul walked towards the famed food critic.  
  
“I’m, uh,” he began, but Lisa interrupted him.  
  
“I know who you are, Jeffry Clayton. Type A personality. Control freak. You hate that you have to listen to my words like gospel, that I’m a woman, and your job, your future, relies on me and what I think.”  
  
Jeffry attempted to stutter out a response. Lisa quickly dashed any hopes for him to recover her position. “I know what you were about to say. ‘Ms. Wilbourn! That isn’t true! Oh, no! _Comment peux-tu_!’”  
  
Lisa laughed. “I’ve heard it all before, Jeffry. And for those of you who are listening, which is all of you--except that guy in the back, good job, keep working!--I’ve heard anything and everything. Let me be clear, again,” she said, glancing at the camera. “I don’t give much of a fuck about your life habits, even though I might poke at them.” She looked Jeffry in the eyes, gaze cold. “But don’t _ever_ try to make up with bad food with a _fucking sob story_.”  
  
Jeffry became indignant. “I didn’t come here all the way just to--”  
  
“Just to what?” interrupted Lisa. “Just to try and bully _me_, the great foodie bully of Brockton Bay, into giving you a free pass? Jeffry, nothing you say matters to me. I just want to know how that stew tastes,” she said, gesturing at the bowl in his hand.  
  
He began to sputter, but she held up a single finger. Then she pointed at the camera, beckoning its attention. Then she gestured at the door. She grinned.  
  
Jeffry stared at the fox and gulped.  
  
“Come on, then. Give me a taste,” she said, beckoning him closer with her right hand.  
  
\--------------------------------  
  
It was hours later that found Lisa in her trailer dressing room, pulling pins out of her hair.  
  
“You can reveal yourself,” she said to the air.  
  
For a long few moments, nothing happened. Then a few flies started to congregate in a single area. Then the centipedes, and spiders, and before she knew it a person made entirely of bugs was standing in Lisa’s trailer.  
  
“_How did you find me_,” it buzzed, monotone.  
  
Lisa smiled. It wasn’t very pretty. “I know everything, my buggy, winged friend. I’m in touch with food, and when you’re in touch with food, you’re in touch with everything that eats it. Ergo, all living creatures.”  
  
The bugs hovered in midair for a moment before buzzing, “_That’s bullshit._” The sound of the wings beating on each other made it sound more like “fats bullshit,” but Lisa decided not to comment on the accuracy of the pronunciation of the living bug person standing in her trailer.  
  
Lisa shook her head, smiling. “Not bullshit. For example, I know that’s not really you.”  
  
The bugs made no coherent words, but many of the flies and gnats entering and leaving the humanoid shape flew in more agitated patterns. Lisa internally congratulated herself; she didn’t even use her power for that one!  
  
Finally, they responded with something Lisa didn’t expect. “_We know something about you too, Sarah_.”  
  
That shocked her. That shocked her really bad.  
  
Sarah--no, Lisa stood quickly from her chair. “Who told you that,” she hissed at the humanoid mound of bugs. “I _know_ you didn’t learn that on your own. And you didn’t mean ‘we’ as in ‘my multitudes of bugs that make up myself,’ did you?”  
  
The silence was all the answer Lisa needed.  
  
“Who do you work for?” she asked. “Who are you trying to intimidate me into working with? The Empire? Merchants? Coil? The PRT?”  
  
The bugs didn’t react in a way anyone but Lisa would have noticed. But notice she did. “What the hell does Coil want from me? I’m a food critic and restaurateur, not a cape.”  
  
There was a pause, before: “_He wants your services as a Thinker. You aren’t quite the “scrumptiousness Sherlock” people think of you as, Ms. Ramsay.”_  
  
Sarah Livsey was suddenly transported back to one of the darker days shortly after her powers manifested. It was before her parents found out about her gift, and she had been playing detective. She was digging through filing cabinets, trying to find... she didn’t know. Maybe something of Rex’s, maybe a magic document that explained... everything.  
  
She did find the magic document. But it wasn’t about Rex.  
  
It was a Certificate of Adoption, declaring that her parents had adopted her... from one Gordon Ramsay.  
  
Gordon Ramsay. The food critic?  
  
Sarah’s mind raced. Did her parents _never_ love her, since she was adopted? Was she technically British, now? Did she have to talk in an accent? Did Gordon ever think about her?  
  
Did Gordon even _remember_ her?  
  
Sarah resolved at that moment to never tell _anyone_. Nobody. She carefully returned the certificate to where she found it, and closed the filing cabinet.  
  
Nobody knew she had been there, it seemed, until this day, nearly three years later. Lisa was sure that if her power had direct offensive use, she would have burnt the pile of bugs to a crisp.  
  
“Your employer seems to know a lot about me,” she said, as casually as she could.  
  
The bugs paused, and now Lisa _knew_ it was for Coil to feed information to the bugs’ master.  
  
“_He knows a lot about a lot of people_,” the bugs answered noncomittally.  
  
Lisa sighed. “I’m a food critic. I’m running a show, here. I can’t just... leave in the middle to put on purple spandex and rob banks, or whatever you want me to do.”  
  
The bugs hummed. “_Don’t stop the show_,” they said. “_Just make sure some people don’t get out so quickly. The winner can still be true._”  
  
“You want me to judge people based on their life habits?” asked Lisa. “I just spent, like, literally my entire time in the kitchen today explaining that that isn’t me.”  
  
The bugs higher up moved in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a shaken head. “_It’s not so much a request, as an order_,” they said.  
  
As they did, Lisa felt what she knew was a Black Widow spider climbing up her back.  
  
The bugs began to rub their wings together to form more words, but Lisa was done playing. She crossed her toenails and activated Ellen’s killswitch.  
  
Everything in the room that wasn’t Lisa, her trailer, or most (but sadly not all) of her belongings was instantly vaporized.  
  
Lisa blinked, and shook her head. Ellen did great work, but now she had to get going.  
  
After all, if her father seldom stayed with one kitchen for very long, she wouldn’t either.  
  
Lisa set her sights on farther horizons and began to plot a course in her vehicle’s GPS, setting out for the next kitchen nightmare she’d have to fix. Who knows? Maybe she’d spend this identity away from the camera.  
  
(CANON? EPILOGUE:  
  
And as Lisa drove away to new freedoms, that reality collapsed. “Tell Skitter to pull back. We won’t do this tonight,” said Coil.)


End file.
